Seth Godin 2/10/16

Wrote a book a month for two years, on topics of every imaginable subject.

Book – four hour chef

Media consumption – no live TV. Best hack is to explore content on your schedule. Cutting out TV frees up massive time for reading and learning.

Fears for the Future of books as they are on more distracting mediums in the digital sphere.

Yes or no rules – limits speaking engagements to 30 days per year unless it’s local.

Speaking gigs don’t change lives, but they plant the seeds of change.

Live life on offense, not defense. Most people play with the cards they have instead of moving to a different table with different cards.

How do you navigate transitions? Remind yourself with every move and project that this might not work. Have dramatically more projects and attempts than people, and prepare to fail more. But success will be there as well.

His book – your turn.

Share your journey with blogs, podcasts, etc.

Daily blog – create a deep practice

In first year of business school, he worked with a classmate to brainstorm five thousand business ideas.

Did so by designating a room to brainstorm ideas. “this is the business idea room. It is only for business ideas.”

There is no correlation between writing and rituals. Everyone is different.

TF – to break writers block, write what makes you angry.

Write poorly as much as humanly possible.

To get good ideas, the goal isn’t to get good ideas. It’s to get bad ideas, until good ones finally show up.

First step to a good business – sell something that people want to buy.

Instead of starting a business that you have to push uphill, start a business that you can push downhill.

TF – Silicon Valley has a fetishizing of pain.

Second step to a good business – know when you’re wrong. Get good at that by failing a lot and trying even more.

Entrepreneur vs freelancer –

Freelancers – get paid when they work.

Entrepreneurs – build a business that is bigger than them. They get paid even in their sleep.

First ten blog post. Share an idea to ten people. If they don’t tell anyone else, you’re already in trouble. If they do share your idea, you’re on your way.

Two roads for entrepreneurs –

Whose need can I satisfy a need without selling myself short. Make a list of the thousand things people want, and use the resources you have to solve that problem as quickly and easily for them as possible.

“The purpose of my business is to change people.” change them to the point where you’re remembered generations from now. Decide that you want to be “tattoo worthy” – people get tattoos of Harley Davidson, not Suzuki.

Teach kids how to read and solve interesting problems. Give kids interesting problems, and don’t criticize them when they fail.

Best thing you can say is I don’t care how you did on that test, I care what creative problem you solved. Anything worth memorizing can be looked up now. Focus the energy on something else.

Good colleges don’t work anymore. Of there is an entity that will have trouble living without try when you seek to make a living. If there is, you’ll make a living. Of you’re standing in an employment line, you will be persistently undervalued.

Practices for parents – what can possibly be more important thing than your child? Spend two hours every single day talking to your child, looking them in the eye, and you will raise a much healthier child.

That’s why he cooks dinner every night.

Go for a walk with your child.

Social pressure to maintain discipline. There needs to be a punishment or reward.

Education – we are all fighting 12-20 years of brainwashing, epitomized with the question “will this be on the test?”

Education has created a system where we cannot/do not want to self learn.

Being surrounded by legitimate skeptics (people who know you, down to your soul, and can hand you back a project and say, ‘I think this could be better’) is great.

Book – Replay.

Get wouldn’t tell himself ten years earlier anything. The failure taught him incredibly.